■S 




P 



eC 



U 



or ^ilrA•^•<»- 
Tin. 10, I^H 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



D00ES33SHD5 



^ 






E 440 
.5 

.D32 
Copy 1 



V 

SECESSION OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 



SPEECH 



OF 



HON. D. C. DE JARNETTE, OF VIRGINIA, 



IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 10, 1^61. 



Mr. DE JARNETTE said: 
Mr. Speaker: On the 20th day of December, 
1860, the people of South Carolina, by unaninnous 
consent, passed the following ordinance of seces- 
sion: 

An Ordinance to dissolve the Union between the State of 
South Cai-olina and the other States tmited with her, un- 
der the compact entitled '• The Constitution of the United 
States of Jlmerica." 

We, the people of South Carolina, in convention as- 
sembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared 
and ordained, that the ordinance adopted in convention, on 
the 23d day of May, in the year of our Lord 1788, whereby 
the Constitution of the United States,of America was rat- 
ified; and also all acts and parts of acts of the General As- 
sembly of this State r.-itifyin? the amendments of the said 
Constitution, are hereby repealed ; and that the Union now 
subsisting between South Carolina and the other States 
under the name of The United States of America, is hereby 
dissolved. 

Several of the other States in which the in.stitu- 
tion of domestic slavery exists and is recognized 
by the people, and protected by law, are already 
taking incipient steps tending inevitably towards 
the passage of similar ordinances of secession; 
and a majority, a large majority, of the people of 
each and all of those States entertain the opinion, 
with the utmost confidence, that they have the 
right so to do. It is probable that a majority of 
the people of the other or non-slaveholding States 
deny that this right exists. All the States in the 
southern portion of the Confederacy — fifteen in 
number — claim the right to secede from the Union 
whenever, in their judgment, secession is best 
calculated to remedy any evil under which they 
may be laboring. AH the northern States, eigh- 
teen in number, deny the existence of such a 
right. It is a clear and distinct claim of a right 
on the one hand, and an equally clear and dis- 
tinct denial of that right on the other hand. 

It becomes, therefore, a question of immense 
and immediate importance. Have the States of 
this Union, for any cause whatever, the right 
peacefully to secede from the Union? On the so- 
lution of this question may perhaps depend the 
future peace and prosperity of the people of this 
country, or the shedding of fratricidal blood in the 
fiercestcivilwar that ever cursed our earth. Those 
who deny the right of secession say that seces- 
sion is but another name for revolution; and that 
revolution is treason, depending on its success, or 
want of success, as.to whether it will be justified 
or condemned by the civilized world. If such 
sentiments as these prevail with the people of the 



North, and the party which is about to grasp the 
reins of government attempts to act upon them,, 
the practical results will be the same in secession^ 
as in revolution. No matter how clear the right 
to secede peaceably may be in itself, if that right 
is denied by those who control the affairs of the 
Federal Government, the attempt to secede on the- 
one hand , however peacefully it may be made, and! 
the attempt on the other hand by forcible means 
to prevent the secession, will make war the inevit- 
able consequence. It is agreed on all hands that 
the southern States, if their grievances are suffi- 
ciently great to justify it, have the right, like the 
fathers of our Republic, to revolution. Revolu- 
tion does not necessarily imply war; there might 
be a peaceable revolution. But, if an attempt is 
made by coercive measures to suppress a revolu- 
tion, then war ensues. Precisely so, if the right 
to secede is not conceded by those in authority 
in the Government, and they attempt forcibly to 
pi-event a State from seceding, or to coerce back 
mto the Union a State that has exercised the 
right peacefully to dissolve her connection there- 
with. In the one case as in the other, bloody 
strife will ensue. The right to secede, therefore, 
to be of practical importance, must be recognized 
and conceded by those who have control of the 
Federal Government. This right of secession has 
long been an acknowledged article in the faith of 
one of the great political parties into which the 
people of this country have been divided; and it 
IS passing strange that any man who ever called 
himself a Democrat should for a moment question 
the existence of this right. 

The convention of the Democratic party, which 
met in 1856 in the city of Cincinnati, and which 
put in nomination the present Chief Magistrate of 
our country, adopted the following among its res- 
olutions: 

" 4. That the Democratic party will faithfully abi(fe by 
and uphold the principles laid down in the lientueky and 
Virginia resolutions of 1798, and in the report of Mr. Mad- 
ison to the Virginia Legislature in 1799 ; that it adopts those 
principles as constituting one of the main foundations of 
its political creed, and is resolved to carry them out in their 
obvious meaning and import." 

Upon a platform of which this was one of the 
main foundations, James Buchanan was nomin- 
ated for President; and on that platform he was 
elected to that high office. In accepting the nom- 
ination, he emphatically indorsed the platform 
and thereby pledged hipfiself to carry faithfully 
into execution its principles, in the event of his 



.T13Z 



election. The first n-soknion in the series passed 
by the Legisltitnre of Kentucky, on the 10th day 
of November, 1798, so eniphalically adopted by 
the Cincinnati convention, and so cordially in- 
dorsed by its candidate, reads as follows: 

" 1. Resolved, That the several Slates coiiiposin;; the 
United States of America are not united on the principle 
of unlimited submission to theirGeneral Covernment; but 
that, by compact inuler the style and title of a Constitution 
for the United States and amendments thereto, they con- 
stitute a General Gnvernment for special purposes, dele- 
gated to the Government certain defined powers, reserving 
each State to itself the residuary mass of right to their own 
self-goveniment ; and that whenever the Geueral Govern- 
ment assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthori- 
tative, void, and of no efteet; that to this compact each 
State acceded as a State, and is an integral party ; that this 
Government created by this compact was not made the 
exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers dele- 
■gated to itself — since that would have made its discretion, 
•and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers ; but 
that, as in all other cases of compact between parties hav- 1 j 
ing no common judge, each party has an equal right to j 1 
judge for itself as well of infractions as of the mode and j 
manner of redress." |l 

Now, this is the doctrine adopted by the Dem-|l 
ocratic party in 1856 as constituting one of the j 
main foundations of its political creed. This is; 
the doctrine which that party resolved to carry; 
out in its obvious meaning and import. To carry i 
out this doctrine, that party nominated and elected 
James Buchanan; and he ]iledged himself to carry 
out the doctrine of the party. That tiiis resolu-- 
tion contains a clear ami distinct enunciation ofi 
the right of secession scarcely admits of a doubt; 
for it unequivocally recognizes the principle that 
the Constitution is a compact between the Stales, !| 
and that each, as a party to that compact, has an [ 
equal right with each other State, the same as in 1; 
any other case of compact between parlies, to : 
judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the | 
niode and measure of redress. And it is a well I [ 
established principle of common law that where 
one of several parties to a compact infracts or vio- 
lates the stipulations of that compact, all the other 
parties are relieved from obligation to it, and may, 
if they choose, treat it as imll and void. The sev- 
eral coequal State sovereignties of North America 
enter into a compact with each other — a compact 
that is equally binding upon all. In process of 
time some of the clearly-expressed provisions of 
that compact are set at naught, disregarded, and 
trampled under foot by some of the contracting 

f)arties. The States who are injured by this vio- 
ation of the compact (each for itself) have the 
right to judge as well of infractions (of the fact 
that there have been infractions, and of the nature 
and extent of those infractions) as of the mode 
and measure of redress. If one State judges that 
the compact has been materially and grievously 
infracted, and that her mode and measure of re- 
dress shall be to treat the whole compact as hav- 
ing been rendered null and void by such infrac- 
tion, and thus take herself out of the Union, she 
has a perfect right to do so; at the same time that 
another State may, wiih equal right, determine, 
as her mode of redress, to contend for her rights 
in the Union. 

This is the leading principle of the Kentucky 
resolutions of 1798, adopted by the Democratic 
convention in Cincinnati, in 1856, and to the cor- 



dial support of which the whole party, with James 
Buchanan at its head, stand pledged before the 
world. Both of the wings of that party, in the 
late presidential contest, also stood pledged to this 
doctrine; not only by the fact that boiii, as one 
party, supported Mr. Buchanan in 1856 with this 
platform; hut likewise and especially tor the rea- 
sons that both conventions — that which put in 
nomination Judge Douglas, as well as that which 
supported Major Breckinridge — readopted and 
reaffirmed the Cincinnati platform . It ought, there- 
fore, to be a matter of profound astonishment, that 
any man who calls himself a Democrat, whether 
occupying a high or low position in the party, 
should now deny the existence of the right ofStates 
to secede, whenever, in their opinion, the compact 
has been violated so as to constitute just cause, 
and that secession is the proper " mode and meas- 
ure of redress. " Is the denial of that right car- 
rying out the Kentucky resolutions " in their ob- 
vious meaning and import?" But this is a question 
of too transcendent interest, and involves too much 
weal or woe to the people of this country, to be 
decided by any mere party test. Does the right 
really exist ? May a State, believing that the prin- 
ciples of the compact have been violated, and her 
rights invaded, peacefully separate herself from 
the Federal Union .' If so, any attempt to coerce 
such a State will be wholly without warrant, and 
will place those making such an attempt clearly 
in the wrong. 

In order to a proper solution of this question, 
the history of the foundation of this Government, 
as well as the antecedent history of the States, 
must be carefully studied. A few of the most 
prominent items of that history will constitute 
data from which we may at this time derive con- 
clusions of vast moment. 

1. The thirteen colonies which, after their sep- 
aration from Great Britain, united together in the 
formation of this Government, were, previous to 
'hat separation as colonial dependencies of Great 
Britain, wholly separate from and independent 
of each other. Their relationship to a common 
sovereign head was the only tie which, in any 
political respect, bound them to each other. As 
colonies of Great Britain, some had been settled 
at one time and some at another; some were 
provinces of another Government, brought under 
British domination by conquest. Tlie govern- 
ments in some were provisional, in some proprie- 
tary, and in some established by charter. They 
were, therefore, essentially distinct and separate 
from each other, exhibiting no elements of one- 
ness. 

2. On the 4th day of July, 1776, these several 
separate and distinct colonies of Great Britain, in 
Congress assembled in the city of Philadelphia, 
united in acommon Declaration of Independence, 
in which tliey declared, not that the people of 
those colonies, either in their individual capacity 
or in the aggregate, were free and independent of 
Gi'eat Britain, but that these united colonies are, 
and of right ought to be, free and independent 
States; not only free from Great Britain, but free 
from each other; not only independent of Great 
Britain, but independent of each other. That this 
is the true intent and meaning of that document 



is clearly evident from another clause, in wliich 
it is said: 

" And as free and independent States, they have full 
power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, 
establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things 
which independent States may of right do." 

Thus eacli State is declared to be free and in- 
dependent ahke of Great Britain and of all other 
Powers; and each is entitled to exercise all the 
powers and prerogatives of sovereignty. It was 
for the support of this Declaration, that, with a 
firm reliance on the protection of Divine Provi- 
dence, our ancestors mutually pledged to each 
other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred 
honor. That this is the true light in which to 
view the Declaration of Independence, has been 
judicially decided, in the case of Ware vs. Hyl- 
ton, 3 Dallas's Reports, page 199. In rendering 
the opinion of the court, Judge Chase says: 

" I consider the Declaration of Independence as a dec- 
laration, not that the united colonies jointly, in a collective 
capacity, were independent States, but that each of tliem 
was an independent State."' 

That is, that each of them had a right to gov- 
ern itself by its own authority, and its own laws, 
without any control from any other power on 
earth. 

This, then, is the true: character of the Decla- 
ration of Independence. It asserts the separate 
and individual independence, freedom, and sover- 
eignty of each of the thirteen States. It was in 
support of this Declaration that they fought the 
fierce battles of the Revolution; and in this con- 
flict they were successful — gained the very point 
asserted in the Declaration, to wit: the separate 
sovereignty of each State; for the treaty of peace 
between Great Britain and the United States, 
ratified in the year 1783, distinctly recognized the 
sovereignty of each of the States by name. 

3. Previous to the ratification of this treaty, 
however — to wit: on the 9th day of July, in the 
year 1778, and only two years after the Declara- 
tion of Independence — the several States, in Con- 
gress assembled, adopted Articles of Confedera- 
tion and perpetual Union. The very idea of a 
confederation implies not only the previous sov- 
ereignty of the confederate parties, but their con- 
tinued sovereignty also; for the same sovereign 
power necessary in the formation of such a com- 
pact is also essential to its preservation. But we 
have no need to rely on mere inference; for the 
first two articles of that document read as follows : 

"Art -1. The style of this Confederacy shall be the Uni- 
ted States of America. 

" Art. 2. JCach State retains its sovereignty, freedom, 
and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right 
which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to 
the United Stales in Congress assembled." 

There was in these articles no surrender of sov- 
ereignty, freedom, or independence. The cen- 
tral Government was merely an agency estab- 
lished for the purpose of protecting the equal and 
common rights of the several members of the Con- 
federacy. Certain definite powers were delegated 
to it; every other power, jurisdiction, and right, 
was expressly reserved to the States. The entire 
language of that instrument, in all its parts, car- 
ries indubitable evidence of the continued, inde- 



pendent, separate sovereignty of each of the con- 
federate States. 

The Constitution under whicli our present Gen- 
eral Government claims its existence comes next 
in order; and upon the correct understanding of 
this instrument, guided by the antecedent light 
to which reference has been already made, must 
depend the solution of the grave and momentous 
question now in discussion before the American 
people. It is contended on one hand that this 
Constitution is an organic act, consolidating into 
one Government all the people of this covmtry; 
constituting a General Government — over indi^ 
viduais of limited powers, it is true, yet absolute, 
supreme, and unending, in relation to all matters 
conceded to it — and that no State can separate 
from the Union, except by revolution or rebellion. 
ItLs contended on the other hand that our present 
Union, though more perfect than under the Arti- 
cles of Confederation, is of the same general char- 
acter — strictly a confederation of coequal sover- 
eigns and independent States; a Union, it is true, 
but not a union of individuals. It was, and is, 
strictly and truly, a union — or confederation — 
of States. The Constitution is a compact be- 
tween those States, acceded to by each, and from 
which any State may secede when the provisions 
of that compact have been violated by the other 
States. The former of these opinions was enter- 
tained and defended by the old consolidationists, 
who, in the early years of this Republic, by a 
strange perversion of names, were called Feder- 
alists; and the other opinion was maintained by 
the anti-Federalists, or Republicans. John Adams 
and Alexander Hamilton were among the most 
prominent of the Federal school; and Thomas 
Jefferson and James Madison were among the 
most distinguished representatives of the Repub- 
lican faith. In more modern times Chief Justice 
Story and Daniel Webster have been distin- 
guished advocates of the Federal school; and John 
C. Calhoun has excelled in the advocacy of Jef- 
fersonian Republicanism. 

The State-rights, Democratic, or Jeffersoniari 
Republicans have always contended, 

1. That at the time of the adoption of the Con- 
stitution, the States were severally free, inde- 
pendent, and sovereign. 

2. That the present Union is the result of a con- 
stitutional compact, to which each State, as an 
independent sovereignty, acceded. 

3. And that, as a consequence legitimately de- 
ducible from these premises, each Slate may, in 
the exercise of the same independent sovereignty, 
secede from the Union. Hence, the convention 
of South Carolina, in 1852, by a vote of 136 to 
19, passed the following ortlinance: 

" That South Carolina, in the exrrcise of her sovereign 
will as an independent State, acceded to the Federal Union 
known as the United States of America, and that, in the 
exercise of her sovereign will, it is her right, without let 
hindrance or molestation from any power whatever, to, 
secede from the said Federal Union ; and for the sufficiency 
of the causes whieli may impel her to such separation, she 
is responsible alone, under God, to the tribunal of public 
opinion among the nations of the earth." 

Mr. Calhoun holds the following language in 
relation to this subject: 
" That a State, as a party to the constitutional compact, 



4 



has the right to secede, acting in the same capacity in which 
she ratifii'd the Constitution as a compact. It' a power 
should be inserted by the amending power which would 
radically change the character of the Constitution, or the 
nature of the system, or if the former should fail to fulfill 
the ends of which it was established. This results neces- 
sarily from the nature of a compact, when the parties to it 
are sovereign, and, of course, have no higher authority to 
which they may appeal. That the eflect of secession would 
be to place her in the relation of a foreign State to the 
others, is equally clear. Nor is it less so that it would 
make her (not her citizens individually) responsible to them 
in that character. All this results necessarily from the 
nature of a compact between the sovereign parties." 

Is not this correct reasoning.' If tlje premises 
are true, how can the conclusions be avoided.' The 
Federal party in the United States Senate in 1833, 
. under the leadership of Daniel Webster, conceded 
the correctness of tiiis reasoning, and the legiti- 
macy of these conclusions, and joined issue upon 
the matters of fact involved. 

Mr Webster says: 

"If, in adopting the Constitution, nothing vv-as done but 
acceding to a compact, nothing would seem neces.sary in 
order to break it up but to secede from the same compact." 

The whole subject of the right of secession, 
therefore, turns upon the questions: Is the Grov- 
ernment a confederation of coequal, sovereign 
States.' Is the Constitution a compact to which 
the several States in their sovereign capacity have 
acceded.' It is exceedingly difficult to get at the 
true position of the Federalists on this point. At 
one time they will admit the independence and 
sovereignty of the States, and at another time 
deny the same. At one time they admit the Con- 
stitution to be a compact; at another time they j 
deny it. I 

Judge Story, one of the ablest and most dis- 
tinguished of the Federal writers, in his elaborate- 
work on the Constitution, though he strives to 
write with great caution and wariness, is not free 
from such contradictions and incongruities. In 
a note to page 362, he quotes some very disin- 
genuous remarks from tlir opinion of the Supreme 
Court in the case of McCuUock ijs. Maryland, 
in relation to the fact that the Constitution was 
finally ratified by conventions of the several States. 
He says: 

" They acted upon it in the only manner in which they 
can act safely, effectively, and wisely on such a subject, 
by assembling in convention. It is true that they a.ssem- 
bled in their several States ; and where else should they 
tiave assembled.' No political dreamer was ever wild 
■enough to think of breaking down the lines wliich separate 
the .States, and of compounding the .'\merican people in one 
■common mass." 

This was an unfair, unjust, and incorrect rep- 
resentation of the position of his opponents. It 
is not because the conventions assembled in the 
several Slates, but because those conventions were 
'the delegated assemblies of the States, that this 
fact presents an argument in conflict with the 
Federal or consolidation theory. But Judge Story 
says: 

" No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think 
of breaking down the lines which .separate the Stales, and 
of compounding the American peopli: into one common 
imass." 

Yet, on the very next page, he quotes from 
Mr. Webster's speeches, introducing the quota- 
tion as follows: 

" The doctrine Uiat the Slates are parties is a gratuitous 



assumption ; in the language of a most distinguished states- 
man, Mr. Webster, ' The Constitution itself, in its very 
front, refutes that.' It declares that it is ordained and es- 
tablished by the people of the United States. So far from 
saying that it was established by the governments of the 
several States, it does not even say that it was established 
by the people of the several States. But it pronounces that 
it is established by the people of the United States, in the 
aggregate." 

Now, is not this, so far as every practical pur- 
pose is involved, literally "compounding the 
American people into one common mass .'" Does 
not Judge Story show himself and Mr. Webster 
to be "political dreamers of the wildest character.'" 
But, in very truth, are not these distinguished 
gentleman entirely mistaken .' The Constitution 
does not say "in its very front," or anywhere 
else, that it was ordained and established by the 
people of the United States in the aggregate, any 
more than it says it was done "by the people of the 
several Statics acting severally." The Constitu- 
tion itself, "in its very front," pronounces neither 
way, but simply that it was "ordained and estab- 
lished by the people of the United Slates." The 
truth of history, however, "in its very front," 
pronounces that it was done by the people of the 
States severally, and not in the aggregate. The 
doctrine that the States are parties, is what Judge 
Story here pronounces to be a gratuitous assump- 
tion; yet, in page 360, he thus introduces a quo- 
tation from the Federalist: 

"It was truly remarked by the Federalist, that the Con- 
stitution was tlie result, neither from a desire of a majority 
of the people of the United States, nor from that of a ma- 
jority of the Stales. It resulted from the unanimous assent 
of the several States that are parties to it." 

If the Slates are " parties "to the Constitution, 
how can the doctrine that the States are parties 
be a "gratuitous assumption.'" In the celebrated 
debate in the United States Senate, in 1833, Mr. 
Webster, in emphatic and almost indignant terms, 
repudiates the phrase, " constitutional compact," 
which Mr. Calhoun had employed in his resolu- 
tions, declaring that " the word compact was not a 
constitutional mode of expression." Yet, in his 
great speech in reply to Hayne, delivered in the 
United States Senate on the 20th day of June, 
1830 — less than a year previous to this debate — 
Mr. Webster, in allusion to the basis of repre- 
sentation in the slave States, says: 

" Nevertheless, I do not complain, nor would I counte- 
nance any movement to alter this arrangement of repre- 
sentation. It is the original bargain to the compact ; let it 
stand; lettheadvantagesof it be fully enjoyed. The Union 
itself is too full of binefits to be hazarded in propositions 
for changing its origiii.il basis. 1 go for the Constitulion as 
it is ; and for the Union as it is ; but I am resolved not to 
submit in silence to accusations either against myself in- 
dividually or against the North — wholly unfounded and un- 
just ; accusations which impute to us a disposition to evade 
the constitutional compact, and to extend I he powers of 
the Government over the internal laws and domestic con- 
dition of the States." 

It is here apparent that Mr. Webster himself, 
when not displaying the wariness of the skillful 
debater, could talk as freely of the " constitutional 
compact" as any one else. And if Mr. Webster 
and Judge Story, the two greatest ligiils of the 
Federal school, are thus incongruous and contra- 
dictory in their statements and reasonings, what 
must be thought of the cause which leads them 
into such confusion.' 



In the late message of the President of the Uni- 
ted States, addressed to the two Houses of Con- 
gress, in speaking of the right of secession, the 
President says: 

" Sucli a principle is wholly inconsistent with the his- 
tory as well as the character of the Federal Constitution. 
After it was framed, with the greatest deliberation and care, 
it was submitted to conventions of the people of the sev- 
eral States for ratification. Its provisions were discussed 
at length in these bodies, composed of the first men of the 
country. Its opponents contended that it conferred powers 
upon the Federal Government dangerous to the rights of 
the States ; while its advocates maintained that under a 
fair construction (»f the instrument there was no founda- 
tion for such apprehensions. In that mighty struggle be- 
tween the first intellects of this or any other country, it 
never occurred to any individual, either among its oppo- 
nents or advocates, to assert, or even to intimate, that their 
efforts were all vain labor, because the moment that any 
State felt herself aggrieved she might secede from the 
Union I What a crushing argument would this have proved 
against those who dreaded that the rights of the States 
would be endangered by the Constitution ! The truth is, 
that it was not until many years after the origin of the 
Federal Government that such a proposition was first 
advanced." 

This is going back to the proper source of in- 
formation on the subject. But is the President 
correct.' Is it true that the States, in establish- 
ing a General Government, with specific powers 
accurately defined in the constitutional compact, 
really understood at the time, that they never 
could revoke the act by which they ratified the 
Constitution, nor resume the powers which, by 
that instrument, they had delegated to the Gen- 
era! Government, no matter how much those dele- 
gated powers might be perverted to their injury, 
nor to what extent some of the members of the 
Confederacy might violate the clearly expressed 
provisions of the compact.' If such was the un- 
derstanding, it can doubtless be determined by 
reference to the history of the times. The States 
of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, in the 
acts by which they ratified the Constitution, used 
the following language: 

" Acknowledging with greatful hearts the goodness of 
the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, in affording the people 
of the United States, in the course of providence, an oppor- 
tunity, deliberately and peacefully, without fraud or sur- 
prise, of entering into an explicit and solemn compact with 
each other, by assenting to and ratifying a new Constitu- 
tion." 

And then proceeds, on behalf of those States, 
to assent to and ratify the Constitution. 

This clearly establishes the fact, that these two 
States regarded the Constitution as a compact, 
acceded to, or assented to, by the States as sov- 
ereign contracting parties. 

Virginia, in ratifying, said: 

" Do, in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, 
declare and make known, that the powers granted under 
the Constitution, being derived from the people of the Uni- 
ted States, be resumed by them whenever the same shall 
be perverted to their injury or oppression ; and that every 
power, not granted thereby, remains with them at their 
will." 

New York said: 

"That the powers of the General Government maybe 
assumed by the people whenever it shall become necessary 
to their happiness ; that every power, jurisdiction, and right 
which is not, by the said Constitution , clearly delegated to 
the Congress of the United States, or to the departments of 
the Government thereof, remain to the people of the sev- 
eral States, or to their respective State governments, to 
whom tiiey may have granted the same. " 



Rhode Island also declared: 

"That the powers of the Government may be resumed 
by the people when necessary to their happiness ; and that 
all rights not delegated to Congress by this instrument (the 
! Constitution of the United States) remain to the people of 
' the several States, or their State governments." 

I It must be entirely apparent now that the Pres- 
ident is laboring under a mistake as to the facts 
of the case. It is not true that it was many years 
after the origin of the Federal Government, be- 
fore such a proposition was advanced as that. 
The people of the several States who had dele- 
gated these powers to the General Government 
might, for good cause, resume them again. Two 
of the States, in adopting the Constitution, em- 
ploy language which clearly implies this right; 
and three other States distinctly aflirm the right. 
In the convention of New York a proposition 
was submitted, that they ratify the Constitution 
for a period often years, at which time they might 
revoke their ratification of it if they chose. This 
proposition was voted down, and the one just 
quoted was adopted, by which that State claimed 
tihe right to do so " whenever it shall become ne- 
cessary for their happiness," without any limita- 
tion of time. Surely these are facts which ought 
for ever to settle this question. In view of them, 
who can doubt, at least that those who framed 
this Government, believed that the people of the 
several States might resume the powers which 
they had confided to the Federal Government, 
whenever it would be to their interest to do so, 
or, at least, whenever — to use the language of 
Virginia — those powers " shall be perverted to 
their injury or oppression." This is all that South 
Carolina now contends for. It is on this principle 
she is acting, believing that the powers she has 
delegated to the Federal Government are being 
perverted to her injury and oppression, she has 
revoked the act by which she ratified the Consti- 
tution, and resumed the delegated powers. Other 
southern States pursue the same course. Deny 
their right to do so if you will; but you cannot, 
must not, deny that precisely this right was 
claimed, distinctly and definitely, by at least three 
of the original States at the time of their entering 
into the compact; nor that they would not have 
been entered into with other understanding. 

The President thinks the Legislatures of those 
States which have passed personal liberty bills in 
direct contravention of the Constitution and laws 
of Congress, ought immediately to repeal those 
offensive bills, and says: 

" The southern States, standing on the basis of the Con- 
stitution, have a right to demand this act of justice from 
the States of the North. Should it be refused, then the 
Constitution, to which all the States are ])arties, will have 
been willfully violated by one portion of them in a provis- 
ion essential to the domestic security and happiness of the 
remainder. In that event, the injured States, after having 
first used all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain 
redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to 
the Government of the Union." 

Now, with all due deference to the President, I 
submit that this is bad logic; that the conclusion 
is not as broad as the premises demand. This 
language seems to concede that the Constitution 
is a compact to which the several States are par- 
ties. If one portion of the parties to that compact 
" willfully violate one of its essential provisions" 



6 



is there no redress but " revolutionary resistance ? " 
Since all the powers possessed by the General 
Government have been delegated to it by the peo- 
ple of the respective States, when those powers 
are perverted to the injury and oppression of those 
people, or some of the parties to the compact by 
which those powers are delegated, are " willfully 
violated in some of its most essential provisions," 
and such violation persisted in, why may not the 
injured parties ])eacefu!ly recall the powers which 
they have so delegated, and separate themselves 
from that General Government? Is it true that 
we have no peaceful remedy; that forcible " rev- 
olutionary resistance" is the only alternative left? 

There is one more paragraph in this remark- 
able document demanding a moment's attention 
at this point. It is this: 

" In order to justify secession .is a constitutional remedy, 
it must be on liie principle that tlie Federal Government is 
a mere voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at 
pleasure by any one of the contracting parties. If this be 
so, the Confederacy is a rope of sand, to be penetrated and 
dissolved by the first adverse wave of public opinion in any 
of the Stales. In this manner our thirty-three States may 
resolve themselves into as many petty, jarring, and hostil% 
republics, each one retiring from the Union, without re- 
sponsibility, whenever any sudden excitement might impel 
them to such a course. By this process, a Union might be 
entirely broken into fragments in a few weeks, which cost 
our forefathers many years of toil, privation, and blood to 
establish." 

There is a transjiarent sophism in this very 
phrase, "secession as a constitutional remedy; ' 
and in secession, as a constitutional right. No 
one pretends that the Constitution itself provides 
such a remedy, or gives origin to such a right. 
The right is one of the prerogatives of sovereignty . 
The same sovereign power by which the Slates 
severally acceded to the compact will enable them 
to secede from it. This right is an original ele- 
ment of State sovereignty, a power which was not 
delegated to the General Government; and could 
not be surrendered by the States, without an ab- 
rogation of the States themselves. But " if it be 
so, the Confederacy is a rope of sand." Truly 
the framers of this Government never intended it 
to be held together by force; nor can it, so far as it 
is a confederation between States, be preserved by 
force. 

Self-interest, and the existence of equal common 
rights, impelled the States to form this Union, 
intending that the general interest of all, and an 
organized system of mutual good offices, recipro- 
cal affection and regard, would impel each party 
to the compact to a faithful observance of its slip- ! 
ulations. If self-interest, kindly feeling, a noble 
sense of justice, reciprocally felt and manifested, 
do not constitute a ligament strong enough to hold 
the States together, they will inevitably separate. 
The noble men who formed this Government had 
felt the galling yoke of British power too keenly 
to forge with their own hands chains of tyranny 
still more oppressive. Those who had just freed 
themselves by " revolutionary resistance, " and at 
the cost of great labor and sacrifice of hurnan life, 
from the heavy hand of sovereign tyranny, were 
not the men to surrender their own State sover- 
eignty into the hands of a central Power, armed 
with the right, by force, to hold the confederated 
members in their places, no matter how oppres- 



sive that Power might be to the States, leaving no 
redress to the oppressed and injured States but 
to wade through another scene of revolutionary 
strife. 

This Union has now been in existence for almost 
a century; our people have been accustomed to 
this peculiar form of Government, and, were all 
the States faithful to its provisions, none Would 
desire to leave it. " All experience has shown," 
so says the Declaration of Independence, "that 
mankmd are more disposed to suffer, while evils 
are sufferable, than to right themselves by abol- 
ishing the forms to which they are accustomed." 
This inherent conservatism of man, added to the 
community of right and interest of all the Stales, 
which it was the purpose of this Government to 
preserve and protect, ought to make it perpetual. 
The belief on the part of the northern people 
that the southern States will not, and have not 
the right and power to secede under any circum- 
stances of oppression and injury, is doubtless one 
prominent cause of their continued aggressions 
upon the constitutional rights of the South. Had 
they believed that the southern Slates could and 
would secede if those aggressions were not dis- 
continued, they would have ceased long ago. The 
recognition of that right on the part of the 
northern people would, in all probability, have 
prevented the necessity of its exercise. But 
reckless fanaticism — led on and blinded by the 
conviction that the South had no way of escape 
or effective redress except by revolutionary re- 
sistance — has brought the country to its present 
perilous position. The advantages and blessings 
of this Government have been manifold and great. 
It is the most perfect system that the wisdom of 
man has ever devised. Under its blessings and 
benign influence our country has enlarged her 
borders, strengthened her stakes, and made rapid 
strides in all that gives domestic peace and pros- 
perity at home, and insures for us respect and 
power abroad. And the South has shown her 
appreciation of all this, by enduring, from year 
to year, ills and evils to which she would not 
have submitted for a day, under other circum- 
stances. She has borne and forborne, until for- 
bearance has ceased to be a virtue; and now, 
when the long-continued aggressions upon her 
sacred rights have culminated in surrendering the 
reinsof Government into the hands of one pledged 
to exert his entire official influence to place their 
cherished domijstic institutions in the course of 
ultimate extinction, who can blame those States 
for resuming the powers they have heretofore 
delegated to the General Government? 

The Union is already dissolved. "One of its 
brightest stars has disappeared from that re- 
splendent galaxy which has so long lighted up 
the western heavens, and to which the oppressed 
of all nations looked with hope of deliverance." 
Others will inevitably follow, one by one, but in 
rapid succession; and the luster of those that re- 
main will be paled and dimmed, if, indeed, the 
" blackness of darkness" does not spread itself 
I over the entire scene. Where and how stands 
Virginia? I answer, with the South. Interest, 
honor, and inclination, unite her fate with that of 
i South Carolina and her sister southern States. 



Immediate secession is the duty and interest of 
Virgrinia. She can do nothing towards saving 
the present Confederacy; its fate is sealed. The 
sooner the people of Virginia know and recognize 
this fact the better. In the wreck of the present 
ship of State, all is not lost; tlie brolcen frag- 
ments, or some of them, at least, maybe reunited 
in the formation of a new Confederacy, modeled 
after the fashion of the old one. Time is precious. 
Every southern State should promptly take up 
her line of march, and, with equal promptness, 
look out for a new alliance. Prompt and decisive 
action on the part of all the southern States is the 
only step that promises to avert the shedding of 
rivers of blood in civil strife. Nothing short of 
an absolute dismemberment of this Union will 
bring to their senses the dominant, fanatical party 
at the North; and the sooner the fact is under- 
stood, admitted, and acted upon, the better for all 
parties. 

Virginia fully ajipreciatcs the present struggle. 
She will, now that the liberties, rights, and honor 
of her people are assailed, assert her sovereignty 
by defending them. Let each southern State im- 
mediately secede, and take steps with Virginia 
towards the formation of a new Confederacy on 
the same model as the old one. Stand shoulder 
to shoulder, in an unbroken column; and they 
may call it revolution, if tliey please; biU if any- 
thing will avert war, such a movement, conducted 
with calmness, moderation, and decisive firmness, 
will have that effect. By the love of peace; by 



the dread of war; by the impulses of honor and 
duty; by the instincts of self-preservation; and 
by considerations which must affect, for weal or 
woe, the people of Virginia, let her strike for 
freedom and independence, and strike now. 

There was a time in her history, when Virginia, 
like the mother of the Gracchi, wJien asked for her 
jewels, could point to her sons. There they stood, 
Jefferson, Henry, Madison, Monroe, and the im- 
mortal Washington. Those sons of hers, when 
they had spent their lives in achieving, and then 
defending, her liberties, asked no higher honor 
than that she would give them a tomb. She, too, 
in this age, has been proud of another son, whom 
she gave to the nation as the commander-in-chief 
of its armies. That son I, together with her rep- 
resentatives in the Legislature, in her namefhave 
honored with a sword for his brilliant achieve- 
ments in arms. Little did I think, little did Vir- 
ginia think, that that sword was so soon to be 
drawn again.st her who gave him birth. Here, 
sir, in sight of her own blue hills, in sight of 
the tomb of Washington, is this ungrateful son 
plaiming his campaign, and planting his batteries 
for her subjugation. And though she must weep 
over the ingratitude of her parricidal son, the 
more because of her pride in the glory of his past 
renown, yet, emulating the firmness of the old 
Roman fathers, she will discard him forever from 
her bosom, and vindicate in his sacrifice the maj- 
esty of her supreme law — the law of State sov- 
ereignty and State allegiance. 



Printed at the ofiice of the Congressional Globe. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



002 533 540 5 



I 



0D05S3: 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




DDDaS33S40S 



.J 



pHSJ 



